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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
In 'Yellow-Cap and Other Fairy-Stories For Children,' Julian Hawthorne crafts a whimsical collection that draws upon traditional fairy-tale motifs while imbuing them with a rich psychological depth. Written in a lyrical prose style, the stories evoke a sense of wonder and enchantment, appealing not just to the young, but also to the youthful spirit in every adult. Set against a backdrop of vibrant imagination, the narratives weave moral lessons and poignant themes, expertly balancing light-hearted adventure with deeper reflections on human nature and societal norms, indicative of the late 19th-century literary tradition stepping away from purely didactic tales. As the son of the renowned author Nathaniel Hawthorne, Julian Hawthorne grew up in a literary milieu that profoundly shaped his sensibilities. Influenced by his father's exploration of moral complexities and the supernatural, Julian'Äôs own writing captures a similar ethos, but with a distinct focus on the fantastical and childlike. His diverse experiences, including travel and journalism, enriched his narrative style and thematic exploration in this collection, allowing him to connect with a youthful audience while preserving literary sophistication. 'Yellow-Cap and Other Fairy-Stories For Children' is a delightful addition to the canon of children's literature, offering readers a magical escape into realms of imagination. It invites not only children but also parents and educators to explore the joys of storytelling and the invaluable lessons that accompany them. This collection is a testament to the enduring power of fairy tales and a rejuvenating escape into the fantastical.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Yellow-Cap and Other Fairy-Stories For Children
Table of Contents
YELLOW-CAP.
CHAPTER I.
AN APPANAGE OF ROYALTY.
A good many years ago—before Julius Cæsar landed at Dover, in fact, and while the architect's plans for Stonehenge were still under consideration—England was inhabited by a civilised and prosperous people, who did not care about travelling, and who were renowned for their affability to strangers. The climate was warm and equable; there were no fogs, no smoke, no railways, and no politics. The Government was an absolute monarchy; one king, who was by birth and descent an Englishman, lived in London all the year round; and as for London, it was the cleanest, airiest, and most beautiful city in the whole world.
A few miles outside of the city walls lay a small village called Honeymead. It had some fifteen or twenty thatched cottages, each with its vegetable garden and its beehives, its hencoop and its cowshed. Around this village fertile meadows spread down to the river banks, bringing forth plenteous crops for the support of the honest and thrifty husbandmen who tilled them. There was only one public-house in the place, and the only drink to be had there was milk. A case of drunkenness was, consequently, seldom heard of; though, on the other hand, women, girls, and even small children might be seen lingering about the place as well as men.
This public-house was called the Brindled Cow, and it was kept by a young woman whose name was Rosamund. She was the prettiest maiden in the village, as well as the most good-natured and the thriftiest; though she had a keen tongue of her own when occasion demanded. As might be supposed, all the young men in the neighbourhood were anxious to marry her; but she gave them little or no encouragement. She used to tell them that she was well able to take care of herself, so what good would a husband be to her? She didn't want to support him, and she didn't need his support. It was better as it was. As for falling in love, that was a thing she couldn't pretend to understand; but her maiden aunt had once told her that it was more bother than it was worth, and she thought it very likely. Moreover, if by any accident she should one day happen to fall in love, she would take great care that it should not be suspected, because the man she loved would then become so puffed up with conceit there'd be no bearing him!
Such was Rosamund's declared opinion upon matrimony; and it caused gloom to dwell in the heart of many a love-sick swain. But (what was strange) the more love-sick they grew the fatter and rosier they became. The reason probably was that they were for ever going to the Brindled Cow under pretence of being thirsty—but in reality to feast their eyes on Rosamund's lovely face; and since, thirsty or not, she insisted upon their drinking, as long as they stayed, at the rate of a pint of rich unskimmed milk every ten minutes, you will easily understand that it soon became possible to measure the ardour of their affection in pounds avoirdupois. So that by-and-by, when the elders of the village would see their sons waxing great of girth and blowzy of visage, they would shake their heads and murmur sadly—
'Ah! poor lad, how healthy he's getting! 'Tis plain he's in love with Mistress Rosamund!'
There was one young fellow, however, who was seldom seen among the tipplers at the Brindled Cow. He was a slender youth, rather pale, with straight black eyebrows and large thoughtful eyes, which always seemed to be gazing at something far away. There was a romantic story about him, which you shall hear. When he was a small child, only three years old, his mother (who took in washing, and would be called a laundress nowadays) was up to her elbows one Tuesday afternoon in soapsuds and shirts; and Raymond—that was the child's name—was sitting beside the washing-tub, blowing soap-bubbles. All of a sudden the tramp of a horse was heard in the street without, and the woman, looking up from her scrubbing-board had a glimpse through the window of a magnificent horseman, in silk and velvet, with rosettes on his shoulders, and wearing a gold cap with a tall peacock's feather in it. He got off his horse; and in another moment he had opened the cottage door and walked into the washing-room.
The poor woman was at first vastly frightened, for she thought this must be the King, and that he was going to cut off her head because she used chemicals in her washing—though she had never done such a thing except when she was very much pressed for time, or when the water was so hard that the soap would not make suds. However, like a wise woman as she was, she made up her mind not to ask for mercy until she had heard her accusation; so she dropped half a dozen curtseys, and begged to know what his Gracious Royal Majesty's Highness wanted.
Meanwhile, the little boy, from his seat beside the wash-tub, stared and stared at the magnificent stranger, and was sure he never could stare at him enough. The stranger was tall, thin, and as straight as a hop-pole; had a huge aquiline nose, with a pair of long moustachios jutting out beneath it and curling up to his eyes; and on his chin was a sharp-pointed beard. The steam from the wash-tub filled the little room and swam in misty clouds round this singular figure; while the last soap-bubble which the little boy had blown from his pipe rose in the air and circled round and round the yellow cap like a planet round the sun. Altogether he looked like an Eastern genie in an English court-dress—an uncommon sight in the times I write of.
This personage now made two profound obeisances, one to the washerwoman and one to the little boy. This done, he threw back his silk-lined cloak, and taking from the pocket of his doublet a bundle of something done up in gold paper, he opened his mouth and said—
'O yez! O yez! O yez! Whereas his Transparent Majesty King Ormund, Emperor of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, and so forth, and so forth, did, while riding through this village called Honeymead, splash with mud his left Transparent stocking: now, therefore, O washerwoman, it is his gracious will and pleasure that you do hereby wash the same, with all due and proper diligence and despatch, and with the smallest possible amount of unnecessary procrastination. Long live his Transparency King Ormund!'
In fact, the gold paper contained a fine pink silk stocking, with embroidered clocks, a hole in the toe, and seven spots of mud spattered over it. The washerwoman had understood very little of the speech, but she could see that the stocking needed washing; so without more ado she plunged it into the soapsuds, and in five minutes it was as clean as the day it came out of the shop, and was dried before the fire. All this time the stranger had stood bolt upright in the centre of the little room, swathed in the steam, and with the soap-bubble still revolving round his head like a planet; and the little boy still stared up at him, as if he never could stare enough.
When the stocking was quite dry the washerwoman rolled it up again in the gold paper and gave it to the stranger, who put it back in the pocket of his doublet. Then he took from the purse that hung at his belt a new spade guinea, gave it a fillip into the air, and down it fell in the little boy's lap. Then, with a third profound obeisance, he made a long step back towards the door.
Up jumped the little boy in a great hurry and excitement.
'If you please, sir,' he cried out, 'who are you?'
The stranger stopped; and as the steam from the wash-tub wound around him more and more, and the soap-bubble burst on the bridge of his aquiline nose, he replied—
'Little boy, I am an Appanage of Royalty!'
'Please will you give me your yellow cap?' asked Raymond again.
'Not to-day,' said the Appanage of Royalty, with a queer smile.
'To-morrow, then?' demanded Raymond.
'Some day—perhaps!' the other replied, still with that queer smile. And then he disappeared; but whether he dissolved into steam, or exploded like a soap-bubble, or went out by the door in the regular way, the little boy could never be quite sure. It was enough for him that an Appanage of Royalty had said that some day, perhaps, he would give him his gold cap. And Raymond never forgot this adventure; and as a kind of pledge of its reality he ever afterwards wore the spade guinea round his neck by a silken string. He believed that sooner or later it would be the means of bringing him fame and greatness.
CHAPTER II.
THE GOLDEN PLEDGE.
One fine May morning, while Rosamund was churning in the dairy-room of the Brindled Cow, she heard some one walk into the bar. The step was not that of any one of her familiar suitors. It was neither short plump Armand, nor tall bulky Osmund, nor red-haired broad-cheeked Phillimund, nor short-legged thick-necked Sigismund, who drank six quarts of milk last Saturday; nor short-breathed apoplectic Dorimund, who sang sentimental songs with a voice like a year-old heifer's. No, none of these had a step like this step—sauntering, light, and meditative. Nevertheless, it was a step which Rosamund loved to hear.
She stopped churning, and moved softly to where a brightly-polished tin pan was set up on the shelf. It was Rosamund's looking-glass. Before this she smoothed her rumpled hair, straightened the pink bow at her throat, and snatched off her dirty apron. She was provoked to see how red the churning had made her cheeks, and she wished she were paler; but the wish only seemed to make her rosier than before. She told herself that she was a coarse-looking ugly girl; and yet when, only that morning, Dorimund had told her that she was as beautiful as a fairy, she had taken it quite as a matter of course. It was tiresome—the way people could grow ugly all in a moment—and in the wrong moment too!
All this happened during the two or three minutes after the light-stepping visitor had come into the bar; and now this person tapped twice or thrice on the counter. Rosamund, on hearing the tap, began to hum a little song, in an unconcerned sort of way, and walked up and down the dairy a few times, as if she were putting things in order; and when, at last, she came out to the bar, it was with the air of a very busy young woman, who does not like to be disturbed at her churning.
'Oh, is it you?' she said to the person who was leaning on the counter. 'How do you do? I hope you're thirsty?'
The person smiled. He was a handsome young fellow, with dark hair and a pale face, and he looked at Rosamund with a pair of thoughtful eyes. His dress was plain and rather the worse for wear; but round his neck a bright spade guinea was hung by a silken string. It did not seem different from any other spade guinea, yet there must have been something peculiar about it. For it gave a kind of dignity to the young man's aspect, so that if you fixed your eyes upon the coin you forgot the wearer's shabbiness, and almost fancied him to be a noble and opulent personage. Whether the owner were aware of this or not is another question; but, as a general thing, young people seldom know what it is about them that makes them attractive.
'I hope you are thirsty?' Rosamund repeated, in a business-like tone, as she leaned against the other side of the counter, and looked up at the young man with her lovely blue eyes.
'I am not thirsty, Rosamund,' he replied, 'but I am tired.'
'I've always heard that doing nothing was tiresome. Perhaps you'd like to take a chair and sit down? I really must go on with my churning.'
'It isn't that kind of tired that I mean,' said he; 'but if you'll let me sit down in the dairy I don't mind.' Rosamund made no objection, so he vaulted over the counter and they went into the dairy together. 'I'm so tired waiting!' he added, with a sigh.
'And what are you waiting for, may I ask?'
'For something great to happen!'
'Oh! Then why don't you make it happen?'
'I wish I could!' sighed the young man.
Rosamund tied her apron on again, and laid hold of the churn-handle.
'What do you call great?' she asked, beginning to work it up and down.
The young man took his gold coin meditatively between his thumb and forefinger and twisted it on its silken string.
'Greatness is everything that I have not, and want to have,' he said.
'Such as what?'
'Oh, power and wealth, and to be above other men, and to have them look up to me and obey me. That is greatness.'
'Pooh!' exclaimed Rosamund, working her churn vigorously. 'I shouldn't care about such greatness as that.'
'Not care about it, Rosamund?'
'Not so much as a pat of butter, Raymond. What do you want of wealth? Are you hungry, pray, or thirsty? I will give you as much of the best milk, fresh from the cow, as you can drink; and all the wealth in the world couldn't help you to drink more. As for power—however high it brought you, it couldn't make you yourself higher by so much as a single inch: you would still be the same Raymond you are now, even if you were an emperor—yes, or that Appanage of Royalty you've been thinking and talking about all these dozen years or more. Why do you want people to look up to you and obey you, I should like to know? Can't you see that it's not you they would look up to, but your ermine robe and silk stockings——'
'Ah! my mother once washed one of the King's silk stockings—the left one,' murmured Raymond; 'and the Appanage of Royalty said that some day, perhaps, he would give me his yellow cap——'
'And golden crown,' continued Rosamund, not noticing the interruption. 'You silly boy! they would obey the crown, not you, though you might happen to be wearing it. If you think it would be yourself they cared for, just go to London as you are now and order them about! But if I were you I'd rather be truly loved by one—person than be obeyed by one hundred thousand.'
'But if you were I, Rosamund, you'd be a man; and men are different.'
'So it seems.'
'What a noise that churn makes! Rosamund, I've felt all my life long that I was destined to be great. Why else did my mother wash the King's stocking; or the Appanage of Royalty promise me the cap?'
'You've been dreaming, you silly boy!'
'But can a dream that I've been dreaming all my life fail to come true? I don't say that to sit on a throne and rule a kingdom would be the happiest lot in the world; but, just as an experience, it would be good fun; and if one is predestined to it, you know—— Besides——'
'Well, your majesty—besides what?'
'Well, for instance, how would you like to be a queen?'
Rosamund stopped churning, wiped her hands on her apron, and tossed up her pretty chin with a saucy air.
'A queen, indeed! I beg to inform you, Master Raymond, that I am a queen already, and I have reigned longer and more despotically than ever you will, I fancy. Pray, has the Queen of England any subjects more devoted to her than my Osmund and Dorimund and Phillimund and Sigismund and Armand, and twenty others, are to me? Honeymead is my kingdom, and I do really reign, because my power is in myself; and fifty giants to march before me, and a hundred dwarfs to carry my train, wouldn't make me a bit more of a queen than I am now. So—thank you for nothing, Master Raymond!'
Raymond sat erect, with a great deal more animation in his look than he had yet shown.
'Listen to me, Rosamund,' he cried. 'It is true you are Queen of Honeymead. But what is Honeymead compared with London? And why should not you be as much a queen in London as you are here? You would be none the worse for a crown, and dwarfs and giants, though you might not need them: because no man could look at you and not be your faithful subject ever afterwards. And—Rosamund——'
He hesitated, and his cheeks were quite red. Rosamund glanced up at him and thought, 'How handsome he is!'
'Rosamund, I ask you this: if I become king will you sit beside me on the throne, and rule over Great Britain, France, and Ireland?'
Rosamund looked very grave.
'Do you mean to ask me to be your wife, Raymond?' she asked.
'I would have asked you long before, dearest Rosamund, but I waited hoping to be able to offer you a kingdom along with my love.'
'Well, it is a very kind offer,' said she, with a little smile and a sigh, 'and I thank you. But I must say no.'
'Rosamund!'
'If I were your wife I should have no time to attend to the duties of the Court; and if I were your queen I should have no time to attend to you. And I am so jealous that I could not let you neglect me for your kingdom; and yet I'm so ambitious that I couldn't let you neglect your kingdom for me. So it would not do either way; and, if you please, we won't talk any more about it.'
But as she said this her voice trembled, and tears were in her eyes. Then Raymond's heart overflowed with tenderness, and he went to her and took her hand.
'I could not be happy on a throne without you, Rosamund,' said he; 'but I could be happy, if you would marry me, without a throne.'
And because it cost him a good deal to make this sacrifice (even of something he had not got) his voice trembled a little too.
When Rosamund heard that she could resist no longer. She smiled such a smile as Dorimund and the rest would have given their farms to win from her; and said she—
'Oh, Raymond! I am a greater queen in having your love than——'
And then Raymond kissed her just on the place that the next word was coming out of, so the rest of the sentence was lost.
'But are you quite sure, dear Raymond, that you will be content to live here always?' she asked, when they had had a little more conversation of this kind.
Raymond smiled down on her, but he said nothing. Perhaps, in his secret heart, he was thinking that Destiny (which had appeared to him in the shape of the Appanage of Royalty so long ago) might still have some splendid gift in store for him and Rosamund, whereof the yellow cap would be but the symbol. And, if so, it would be foolish in them to bind themselves beforehand not to take advantage of it. So Raymond smiled at Rosamund in a way to show that, at all events, he loved her. And he did love her, no doubt.
'Poor boy!' said Rosamund, after another pause, smiling back rather mischievously, 'to think that you have been wearing this spade guinea all these years, and it has brought you nothing better than me at last!'
'If guineas could buy girls like you, my dear,' replied Raymond, 'the Mint would be kept working day and night. But I'll tell you what use we will make of this—we'll chop it in two, and each of us will wear a half, in token that we belong to one another. And then, no matter how long we may be separated, or what changes come over us, we should always recognise each other by these bits of gold.'
'But you don't think that changes will come over us, or that we shall be separated, Raymond?'
'Certainly not; but we may as well be on the safe side. For instance, if I were to go out and meet with an enchanter, and he were to turn me into a dwarf, and then I were to come back to you, how would you know me except by my half of the guinea?'
'I should trust my heart for that,' said Rosamund, softly. 'Still, we will wear the halves, so that everyone may see that we are but half ourselves when we are not together.'
This being settled, Rosamund fetched a hatchet, and Raymond put the guinea on a stool, and, with one strong blow, made it fly into two exact halves. Then he drilled a hole through Rosamund's half, and hung it round her neck by a piece of pink ribbon; and as for his own half, he strung it on the silken cord that he had always worn. So their betrothal was confirmed.
Just at this moment half a dozen of Rosamund's old suitors came trooping into the bar, and began calling for milk like a herd of calves. Then the lovers looked in each other's faces and smiled, and bade each other farewell very tenderly. Raymond went out through the cowyard; and Rosamund returned to the bar, where she served out fresh milk and thought about the half-guinea that was hidden in her bosom.
CHAPTER III.
THE GOLDEN DWARF.
Raymond strolled away towards the river. He wanted to think it all over. His betrothal was a sort of surprise to him. He had loved Rosamund, in a meditative way, so long that he had got used to not expecting anything more; but now, on the spur of the moment, he had told his love and received the pledge of hers, and it was all settled. He was happy, of course, for he believed Rosamund to be the prettiest and the best girl in the world. Still, he did not wish quite to give up the hope that something might happen to make their life more splendid. He said to himself that it was only for Rosamund's sake he hoped this. Perhaps that was the reason he hoped it so much.
